


keep hold of their necks (make them want the opposite sex)

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: if you wanna find love then you know where the city is [5]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Denial, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recovery, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 07:05:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15836226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: New York has never been so unforgiving.





	keep hold of their necks (make them want the opposite sex)

**Author's Note:**

> last part of this series! thanks for all the lovely comments!

Spot had seen this dying dog once in the some godforsaken corner of Brooklyn, some old mangy thing with a worn collar that he suspected had left its home to die in peace. It had this look in its eyes that had scared the hell out of him, an exhausted pain that he'd thought about for weeks.

Race's eyes looked much the same, shining out of his flushed face with an acceptance of something awful that Spot couldn't comprehend. There was bloody spit on his chin and his broken nose had spread racoon-bruises over his cheekbones, but Spot still thought he looked unbearably gorgeous.

Davey, Crutchie and Jack faded far into the background of Spot's awareness as he sat beside Race and dared to touch him on a rare patch of unbroken and unbruised skin. "Hey, Tony," he said, speaking quietly like he was in a chapel, "How you feeling?"

It was so obvious a question that Racetrack actually smiled, a weak grin that showed off a missed tooth and didn't seem real. "Not too hot." he replied. His breathing was so hoarse and laboured that it was hard for him to speak. "I'm sorry I didn't meet you-"

"Shut up." It was the softest command Spot had ever given. He leaned down and kissed Race on the cheek, and tasted iron on his mouth after like bad wine. "You're gonna be alright, okay? I'm gonna help t'get you back on your feet."

Race's gaze moved past him to the ceiling, losing all clarity in an instant. "Snyder said go to sleep." he muttered, and Spot rocked back, distraught at the loss of competency. He almost jumped when Kelly spoke, forgetting he was there. 

"Synder ain't here." Jack whispered, sounding sad and scared. "Just us, Racer. This ain't the Refuge."

Race was staring at nothing, blank and perfect. "No, he said go to sleep," he continued as if no one had spoken. "Wan' Spot."

"I'm here." Spot pressed his lips to Race's forehead, uncaring of the heat. His eyes burned for the second time that night and the second time in over two years. "Come on, Tony. Stay with us."

Racetrack just groaned, slipping back into unconsciousness with a sigh and a twitch of pain. Davey walked over, face drawn with worry, and took his pulse over Spot's lap.

"He needs to break this fever." Now Spot was surw he looked like the dying dog, hearing every 'or else' that Davey wasn't saying. "Tonight." 

-

Race's ma had always given him three rules for life: work hard, trust your friends, and never break a promise. He took these so seriously, even long after she was dead (the same polio outbreak that crippled Crutchie), that he rarely made promises in fear of breaking them. The only one in years was one he had made to Spot one day in a rare moment of peace and privacy.

They were on the roof of Brooklyn's lodging house under the guise of a card game so as not to be disturbed - none of the newsies wanted to lose to Race, again. Spot smelled like ink and the cheap liquorice they'd just split (his mouth tasted like it to, but that was Race's business) and his head was on Racetrack's shoulder, sleepy enough to be tactile.

Race's heart was gonna burst for no reason at all, for sin and liquorice and the dusk around them, and he knew he'd have to head back over the bridge soon but he didn't want to. He didn't want to pretend this wasn't real and he didn't want to be anyone or anywhere else. "I love you." he said to Spot, but as if he was saying it to the air around them, and the smaller boy shifted slightly.

"I love you too, Antonio."

Race hadn't explicitly said it was but to him, that was a promise - a commitment to take care of each other, one that he intended to fulfil for as long as he could. He wasn't stupid - he knew kids like him washed up dead a dozen times a week and no one gave a damn but their useless little friends, and that the great state of New York ruled boys that kissed boys as punishable. He knew how easily those two facts could be related. 

But he made a promise. And Spot made a promise. So while, months later, Race blinked through the most agony he'd ever felt and saw Spot in tears, he knew he had to do something.

It was too hard, he knew immediately after. His whole body pulsed with pain like a fire poker against all his skin, and then deeper, bone-deep aches at his shoulder and hips and skull. His bare awareness of the world around him tore away yet again and Racetrack raged inside himself, devastated at his brain's failure. Inside his head was liquid and still, slipping and slipping further away, travelling miles from earth every hour, and - 

("I love you."

"I love you too, Antonio.")

Race didn't break promises. He opened his eyes.

-

It didn't all get better at once. Once Race's fever broke, hours after Spot was sure he'd die, he shivered all night and bled and cried. They had to reset his nose and make a sling out of an old vest and change the sheets when he threw up - but he was awake during it all. He shivered and bled and cried in Spot's arms. 

Spot sent a messenger to the bridge to let his boys know he wouldn't be back for a few days - Brooklyn could wait as long as Spot goddamn wanted it to. It took another full day before Race could even sit up, his body aching and shuttering away from any hard surface like a flickering candle. His arm would never work like it was supposed to again; Davey said they'd ripped it clean out of the socket. 

"You is damn lucky." was all Spot would say about it. Race could've lost the whole arm, and all Spot would have thought was thank God he's alive. Thank God he loves me.

Race seemed to have a similar attitude despite the pain - things would heal. He was more than an arm, just like how Crutchie was more than a leg and just like how Race was more than Spot deserved. There was nothing anyway could say that would convince Spot of anything different.

Even with their wildly mismatched worths, Spot loved him. It was wrong, sure, but Spot was starting to think of it as something bad old men like Pulitzer thought was wrong, and hell would freeze before he agreed with that devil. Kelly and Davey and him and Race and every other kid with the same kind of wrong were gonna have to hide a bit longer, that much was obvious - but the world was gonna know one day. Spot was gonna make that damn sure.

**Author's Note:**

> aaand that's it we did it good job team


End file.
